Word on the Street

We all went out to the Word on the Street book festival today. Nefarious mostly hung out at the TVO Kids stage, but afterwards we went around getting as many helium balloons as we could and then tied them to a stick. We kept tying on more until the weight/lift had equalized, so our construction was able to hover… Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the weather changed — I guess pressure went up? — and suddenly it shot up to about 200 feet and just sort of hung out there, to our both amusement and horror. It was fun watching everyone notice it…

This is her at the Anne of Green Gables tent. Caitlin took this picture and there’s another from the day on her site as well. Nefarious also really liked the show put on by Tapestry New Opera — at five she has more patience for opera than I do at (as of tomorrow) thirty five…

We also set up my PS3′s webcam so that Nefarious can have video chats with her mother (which other than a stressful burst when the sound was muted worked well for them this afternoon). Speaking of the cam, I downloaded the The Trials of Topoq game, which is sort of like a modernized body-controlled Marble Madness and have had lots of fun playing it on the PS3 Eye as well.

The main dish was noodles with a veggies (asparagus, shepherd pepper, orange pepper, zucchini, broccoli) in a lime and really mild coconut curry sauce, as well as jumbo scallops (cooked separately but in the same sauce because Caitlin is not a fan of this stringy-but-gelatinous-texturally-offputting delicacy). It all turned out extremely well I think. You can never go wrong with good food.

I had some of the locally produced Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale with it, which I think was a good match for the meal although it really didn’t taste anything like what I expected (no obvious pumpkin or pumpkin pie aura, at least not how I had imagined — I think the nutmeg was the clearest addition to the beer’s flavor)… And, now to see how the new Simpsons and Family Guy seasons begin!

If you’re really interested in a pumpkin-pie tasting beer, you should really try Pumking from Southern Tier down in New York. It’s great–it’s got a sweetness, complexity, and nice hoppy finish to cleanse the palate, so it’s not too sticky-sweet.

First happy birthday! I love Anne of Green Gables, I was even in the play. Nefarious looks very happy. Great Lakes is wonderful they have their brewery in Cleveland Ohio. It’s got a great restaurant as well. Never had the pumpkin ale though.

When I took my daughter to her first opera- a local collegiate production of The Marriage of Figaro- she adored it much more so than I did, for exactly the same reasons that I didn’t like it as much: they did it in english without the overture, or an orchestra, for that matter. I tried to explain that one couple was Figaro’s parents, to which my daughter exclaimed, “But dad, Figaro is black!”